Women, Disability and Praxis in the Caribbean

Key terms: Disability, women and girls, Gender based violence, Caribbean

Introduction
A disproportionate marginality exists for persons with disabilities in the Caribbean and further for women who face “double discrimination,” according to Davidson in her examination of “Women, Disability and the Law: A Commonwealth Caribbean Perspective. According to the United Nations (2006), over 50% of the women with disabilities have been victims of physical abuse at some point in their lives, a higher rate than the estimated prevalence among women without disabilities. This stat should be a wake-up call, and the message is clear on its urgency. With 2025 as the ten-year milestone of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDG), it is worth checking how Caribbean nations are putting their commitments into practice, especially around gender-based violence against women with disabilities.

Background
Caribbean countries have been steadily working toward achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals 5 and 10 across employment, education, politics, health, and social services. “Before the pandemic, the incomes of the bottom 40% of the population grew faster than the national average in a majority of countries.” Consider, however, 16% of the world lives with a disability, and about 80 % are in the Global South. In the Caribbean, an estimated 46 percent of women have experienced intimate partner violence in their lifetime, compared with roughly one in three worldwide. The stakes are clear, which means Caribbean countries have even more reason to move faster to close inequality gaps, especially for women with disabilities.

Caribbean Reality
While these figures exist for women in the Caribbean, national surveys do not make note of the prevalence among persons with disabilities. Compounding this is the inability of some persons with disabilities to communicate or assess their circumstances, resulting in unreported cases. I focus on Grenada, St. Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago, and Jamaica based on their involvement in a recently completed assessment of Persons with disabilities in the Caribbean. This research, commissioned by the Caribbean Development Bank, aimed to assess the situation of persons with disabilities in these four borrowing member countries along several indices, violence and harm being among them.

This situational assessment is precisely what has become necessary as the records for persons with disabilities in the Caribbean are inadequate, and the circumstances are unknown. In Trinidad and Tobago, for instance, a Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) was conducted in 2023. This Household survey examines the situation of women and children, but, quite interestingly, does not note the positions of those persons with disabilities. The ECLAC (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean) situational analysis conducted in 2018 highlights the conditions emerging from the 2000 and 2010 censuses in Caribbean countries as they relate to persons with disabilities. Strikingly, neither of these incorporated harm, violence, and sexual abuse nor variables indicative of further the quality of life. Included are categories of disability, age, rural/urban residence, level of education, employment status, income categories, and origin/cause of disability. Equipped with the relevant statistics, national councils on persons with disabilities and ministries can use this information to inform their policies.

Reflecting on legislation and policy, the Grenada referendum gives little on the status of persons with disabilities, and there was an inability to access the referendum itself. Jamaica’s Disability Act, approved in 2014 and realized in 2022, makes no mention of women. It classifies the experiences of persons with disabilities as gender neutral. A 2022 release by the Ministry of Equity, Social Justice and Empowerment, stated that the updated social protection policy would “place extra focus on gender and disability”. Trinidad and Tobago’s policy, section 4.2, acknowledges women with disabilities and that they are more vulnerable to abuse – “a more concentrated effort is required to address the needs of women with disabilities adequately.” Section 7.6, “Women and children with disabilities,” lists the interventions to be taken regarding women and children with disabilities. In 2022, the Minister of Social Development and Family Services announced that the National Policy on persons with disabilities was under review.

Moriss’s Regional Disability Index, developed to rank countries according to progress made under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, scores countries based on the policies and programs implemented by state parties. This initiative aims to fill an existing gap and provides an overarching view of the current situation of persons with disabilities in the Caribbean region. Article 6 recognizes that women and girls with disabilities are subject to multiple forms of discrimination. Of the four countries under observation in this paper, only Jamaica scored more than half, with a score of 5.5. St. Lucia, Grenada, and Trinidad were 3.5, 4, and 0.5, respectively. These scores are pretty low, even though much implementation using policies and programs has not been done, and there has been minimal response from state and non-state bodies.

Recommendations from the Global South
Two studies from the Global South point to practical ways forward. In Burkina Faso, Wayack-Pambe and Kouanda found that when women with disabilities told their stories of sexual violence, many were doing so for the first time. Sharing was cathartic. It created space for reflection, comfort, and community, and it also built trust in reporting systems. Their study also shows how violence rooted in both gender and disability limits women’s social and economic participation.

In Ethiopia, Getachew, Debelew, and Abdullahi found that women with visual or hearing impairments were about three times more likely to experience violence than women with physical impairments. They argue for integrated solutions: keep more girls with disabilities in school and tailor health education to different disability experiences.

As more Caribbean government bodies adopt the language of inclusion and human rights, the next step is action. Policies and programs need a truly intersectional approach that starts from everyday social interactions and centers the realities of women with disabilities.

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